5th Feb
In my quest to find something new and different, and fueled by the excellent three part analysis of this game done by the Rock Paper Shotgun website, I purchased Pathologic. The reviews already posted here pretty much nailed it; it's a weird, surreal game. There's a very forboding atmosphere, and that adds to the experience of trying to save as many townspeople as you can. The graphics are pretty much average, and if you have a multi-core CPU, you may have to alt-tab to the desktop to set the game's affinity to one core so that the game can run properly. The Russian-to-English translation is passable at best, but still playable (as long as you don't play as the female Devotress character...however, a planned English translation patch by an Ice Pick Lodge programmer may fix this). This game is definitely not for everyone, but if you're interested, please Google for the Rock Paper Shotgun articles on this game to read what it's about; Ice Pick Lodge set out to make something different, and in that they succeeded.
26th Nov 2009
This is at once an immensely interesting and immensely frustrating game. The premise essentially that you spend twelve days in a town quarrantined for a virus outbreak as one of three characters. The interesting part is that their stories interweave and effect the main story throughout; i.e. you take actions as one character and then see the repercussions as another (it's hard to explain this without spoiling the surprises!)
The graphics are somewhat stark, but this only adds to the atmosphere of the game. The English translation is riddled with problems, but rather than detracting from the game this only adds to the otherworldly atmosphere and at times is quite poetic.
Survival plays a big role in the game, with keeping yourself fed, healthy and able to fight being highly important. Combat can be horribly frustrating, mainly due to the engine rather than any gameplay consideration.
Anyone whose tastes reach for the more bizarre or who enjoys a good psychological thriller will probably find this highly enjoyable. This isn't just a unique game, it's an experience.
21st Jul 2009
First off: This game is Strange, with a capital "S". The plot is that you have been sent to cure a village of a mysterious plague. Reasonable. You play it like a first person shooter/adventure game (think Deus Ex). Again, not too weird. The half human half raven narrator's that no one else can see? Quite odd. To say much more would spoil too much, and as this game relies heavily on it's slowly unveiled plot it would be rude to ruin it.
If any of that interests you you would not go far wrong purchasing this game. However be warned that the translation from Russian (it's a Russian game) is terrible. At first you may think people are being cryptic, but no, they just can;t speak English very well. There is a translation project running from the developer's forum, but it is far from finished. This is of course quite irritating and somewhat of a barrier to your enjoyment, but you can muddle your way through and still find allot to like in the odd little production.
2nd Jun 2009
The game has very poor support for built-in audio-cards so, if you find yourself having sound issues, the best way to deal with them is disabling sound altogether. There is no other know way to address the problem, unless you plan on buying an external sound card. Note that on-board audio might still cause inconsistencies, even if you have an external sound card in the computer. You should disable the chip from bios.
Therefore I had to try and play the game with no sound. It made the game boring and flat and I quickly abandoned the pursuit. Shame it looked like it could be good.
More reviews >>